November 2021 Recap

November was a fun month. Golf. Fishing. Camping. Cici's Pizza. Turkey. Pumpkins. All the above. We also took some time off for Thanksgiving, and we hope you found yourself reflecting on the friends, family, and people God has placed in your life. At Forerunner, we couldn't do what we do without people. Without the relationships with mentors, moms, boys, and coaches that God has formed over the past year. As we head into December, we want to show you some of what God did in November. Another month filled with thankfulness and God doing exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ever think of or imagine. Thank you for running this race with us. For championing our forerunners and believing in their lives.

2021 Inaugural Golf Tournament Fundraiser
We had a blast at our Golf Tournament Fundraiser earlier this month! We had over 100 golfers come out to play and support Forerunner Mentoring on Nov. 1st. Initiatives like these go to support our vision for boys in our programs and our vision for Lake Highlands - that every boy fulfills their potential. That they will leave a legacy in Lake Highlands and an inheritance to their children's children.

Camp Firewalker Fishing & Camping Trip
We invited some of our boys and their mentors on a camping trip with Camp Firewalker and it was so much fun! Why do we go on trips like these? Because we believe relationships change lives, and there's nothing like a weekend getaway in nature with your mentor. A mentor that will do fun things with you and help you challenge yourself by trying new things. This is what we're all about!

Veteran's Day - November 11th, 2021
This past Veteran's Day, we recognized one of our mentors, father figures, and member of our Forerunner community, Jeff Loaring-Clark. He has been mentoring Gregory (one of our high school forerunners) since 2018, but before coming alongside Gregory, he came alongside other fellow Americans and served in Iraq. We are so grateful for not just the ways he has served one of our forerunners, but for the ways he has served our nation. Read a story from him below during his service.

1ST LT. JEFF LOARING-CLARK, ARMY
AGE: 29
PLATOON LEADER

A bright flash, an ear-piercing blast, then silence. That’s how Jeff Loaring-Clark describes the car bomb that exploded five feet from his Humvee. “My first thought was, ‘I’m going to die now.’ It wasn’t panicked or hysterical, just logical – like thinking I need to turn left when driving down the road.” The explosion sealed his passenger door shut, but blew open the door behind him. So to escape the flames that had already burned his face and hands, Loaring-Clark slithered over the top of his seat and jumped through the back door. He still doesn’t know how he made it out. “There’s barely enough room for someone my size to get over the seat, especially with 60 pounds of gear,” Loaring-Clark says. “It was pretty much God pulling me out of that Humvee.” His parents awoke soon afterward to a phone call with news that their son had been injured, but would live. While he underwent surgery, they wondered how badly he was hurt and assumed that some of the soldiers in the 16-man platoon he led had been killed. But Loaring-Clark’s mother, Barbara, says they felt peace in the midst of uncertainty. Except for a perpetual ringing in his ear, Loaring-Clark fully recovered within two weeks. And all of his men survived, even the gunner, who was most vulnerable with his head and shoulders sticking out of the Humvee. “At least one of us, if not several of us, should have died,” Loaring-Clark says.

I can’t help but think God knew 15 years later where Jeff would be. With his family serving one of our Forerunners. Mentoring a boy who needs the attention of a father-figure. In some small way, I believe God saved Jeff’s life that day for Gregory’s sake.

Our Squad. Our Voices. Our Secret Sauce.
These are some of our coaches. They don't always get recognized, but they are the reason Forerunner exists. They are the reason our boys are forerunners. They are the reason they are developing into men of God. The reason they are discovering and fulfilling their potential.

Our K-6 Program Coordinator, Quinn Holman and some of the boys in our after school mentoring program.

"We have about 44 kids in our K-6 program, but we only have about 6 basketballs. Most of our students are still learning how to share, take turns, or let others go first. To be fair, I totally get it. I think even as adults we struggle with that at times, and we aren’t even the ones trying to do it after 8 hours at schools full of screaming kids. The easy thing to do when getting to Forerunner is to focus on “me”. But that is not what we are about here. At Forerunner we are building a culture of taking care of one another — a culture of brotherly love. “You before me” (especially when they are younger). Everyday we help guide our students to be examples to those around them as men of God.

I’ve seen that a lot lately, but yesterday that was two older boys in our program. When they got out to recess I was having one of our younger forerunners show me a trick shot that he had learned. He was trying to shoot the ball over the back of the basketball goal and make it into the hoop — not an easy thing to do. Without asking, the two older boys took my place as “rebounder” and began catching missed shots and passing them back to the younger boy for another try.

“So close, try again!”

“You’ve got this, try scooting a little bit closer!”

When he finally made it, it was not just him cheering, but it was a group of 5 boys high-fiving each other for what one student had accomplished. It was patience. It was leadership. Brothers taking care of brothers. It was what Forerunner is all about."

-Quinn Holman, K-6 Program Coordinator

"What do you love about your mentor?"

"I love that he's super nice to me and he always does everything I wanna do with me and he always thinks about me. I can tell he really cares about me. I just can't really explain it but he's like the best mentor in the world and he's a father figure to me"

"What's the biggest thing you've learned through your mentor?"

"Controlling myself. Once when someone made me mad, I thought they wanted to fight me or they had something against me but my mentor told me the truth. He didn't want to fight me. The kid is nice and kind and he just made a mistake"

"What is something you want your mentor to know?"

"That I love him. That he's the best mentor in the world"
-one of our 5th grade Forerunners on his mentor Eric

It’s stories like these that remind us of why we’re in the game of mentoring. Relationships really do change lives. They are seeds that have the potential to produce fruit that outlasts our time. If you’ve read this far, thank you. Thank you for believing in Forerunner, and following us along in this journey. We can’t wait to tell you more stories of life change happening in the boys that we have the honor of welcoming into our doors. Relationships change lives.